You've hired a sales force. You've got a strong sales management team. They're motivated, working hard, racking up sales, filling orders, and throwing them at you like confetti. It sounds great, doesn't it?
But your lean, mean, sales machine will start grinding its gears if it isn't smoothly integrated with your entire enterprise. How do you get a handle on the needs of your mobile sales force, track and fulfill orders, maintain enough inventory, analyze sales trends, provide customer service, and oh yes, have all of this data linked to accounting? If you don't, customers could fall through the cracks, orders could be late, or you might discover serious problems in your sales force.
The solution for many companies trying to juggle all of these balls--and outpace the competition--is sales automation software. This software genre covers a multitude of sins and has a different meaning for almost every organization that adopts it. Sales automation systems typically handle your salespeople's contact management and scheduling and integrate the sales department with order fulfillment, after-sales support, and databases that "back office" planners use to track the performance of product lines and the people that sell them. Since every organization and industry has different priorities, one size does not fit all. That's why sales automation systems are often customized and quite expensive, requiring a lot more forethought than regular software purchases do.
Unfortunately, many companies that adopt these pricey systems don't get what they pay for. According to one study of 225 companies conducted by Insight Technologies of Boulder, Colo., 26 percent of sales automation systems met only some user expectations, and 12 percent found that the systems were no help at all. The rest felt that these systems met or exceeded their expectations.
The disappointment is no doubt compounded by sticker shock. According to the Yankee Group, the typical custom sales automation solution costs between $250,000 and $300,000. Even if you can negotiate a discount (and many analysts say you can), that kind of investment is beyond the reach of most companies.
If your company is selling insurance, long-term investments, or other products and services with complex payment schedules, you may need this level of automation. But if your sales are pretty simple, you can get perfectly adequate sales software for as little as a couple of hundred dollars per user.
In fact, says John Pennington, director of technology for Atlanta-based Pentech, a sales automation consultancy, many businesses can get what they need from off-the-shelf calendar--cum--sales lead programs such as Goldmine, Maximizer, and ACT.
The trick, says Pennington, is picking a product that does the most of what you're looking for and can be customized to meet your specific needs.
So how difficult is it to customize off-the-shelf products? "[It] depends on the product," says Pennington. But a gaggle of third-party developers may have done the work for you already.
Most of the major packages, including GoldMine, Maximizer, Telemagic, and ACT, have a swarm of add-ons that enhance their core lead and scheduling features. Some of these add-ons are pretty vertical (human resources data templates, for example), but many can be used by almost any company. Many integrate the core package with your accounting software or sales fulfillment programs, or offer Internet telephony or fax management. (For a list of popular add-ons, see the "Room for Expansion" table at www.currents.net/crpc.)
What Do You Want?
The first step in adopting a sales automation solution isn't going through a checklist of software features. It's figuring out how information moves through your company. Dick Lee of High-Yield Marketing, a St. Paul, Minn., systems and marketing consultancy, reckons that published failure rates are conservative. In his book, The Sales Automation Survival Guide (Better Books), he estimates that more than half of the attempts to implement sales force automation fail to some extent.
Why? "People try to make their systems fit the software," says Lee. That's backward. Instead you must track from beginning to end how information moves and where customers interact with your employees and systems. This kind of due diligence isn't easy, but if you implement sales automation correctly, you can streamline everything from accounting and customer service to purchasing and manufacturing.
Pulling this off means involving upper management, because middle managers lack the authority to mandate changes. You should also get your priorities straight, says Lee: Concentrate on the customer's needs first, then on those of the employees who interact with customers, and finally on the people in the back office who need tracking and accounting data.
Finding the Best Match
Once you've figured out your company's information flow and key administrators are on board, it's time to find the right software. Lee considers off-the-shelf programs too inflexible for his clients. "GoldMine and ACT are fine for individuals, but they're not relational." Lee prefers middle-tier programs that offer 90 percent of the functions of expensive automation packages but are only 15 percent of the cost. Among these programs, he cites SalesLogix and Sales Continuum, which "have figured out what's generic and put it in. Then they've provided tool kits so that users or contractors can make modifications."
But for John Pennington's clients, add-ons make mainstream programs like GoldMine a viable option.
Pentech even provides free help in picking the right sales lead package at www.pentech.net/ptconsul.htm. Just fill out the on-screen form, noting the features you want, from e-mail links to sales forecasting, and the company will e-mail you suggestions on which programs might be a good match.
If you're not sure which program suits you, don't sweat it. Many vendors, including add-on companies, let you download 30-day or 60-day fully working demos. The trial period should give you a good idea of how well a program will fit in, and you'll get a chance to amass some real data that you can use when you adopt a solution.
To the Victor, the Spoils
Adopting a sales automation system isn't like buying a new word processor. It requires thorough, preparatory work and could involve fundamental changes in the approach that your organization takes to managing information. How can you tell if it's worth the effort? "You can get very caught up on interim measurements," says Lee. "But the customer is the appropriate measure. [Does the sales system] increase business and reduce customer churn?" If the answer is yes, you're on the right track.
© 1998 Matt Lake. All rights reserved.
Matt Lake has racked up experience in three major corporations and one branch of the government. He currently heads up a small business near Philadelphia. You can reach him at mattlake@usa.net.
Get it Right! Eight Steps to Happier Sales Automation
Get Your Priorities Right
The biggest winner in adopting sales automation must be the customer. Make sure that everyone focuses on customer satisfaction and retention as the driving forces in automation.
Assess Your Corporate Culture
You can't suddenly transplant a Fortune 500 mentality into an entrepreneurial business. If your business decides to roll up its sleeves and get it done, someone with the requisite authority must be involved to carry the whole thing through. Avoid middle-management turf battles; make sure a big kahuna is in on the plan from day one.
Research Thoroughly
Hire an outside expert to analyze your office setup and help in the transition. Failing that, read a lot. One starting point is the Sell More Now Web site (www.sellmorenow.com/gosfa/), but there are books and magazines aplenty that specialize in sales automation.
Ask Your Staff What They Need
Get key field workers, sales managers, support staff, and top management to list their goals and needs. Use this as a jumping-off point for assessing the flow of information.
Involve Senior Management
Automating anything involves fundamental changes. Without people in authority squarely behind a plan, it won't succeed.
Identify and Involve People Whose Work Will Change
Salespeople, sales fulfillment, inventory, and after-sales support staff need to be on board and be ready for change. They must be aware, involved, and have their opinions and input solicited early and throughout the process. And they must know what's going to affect them.
Prepare for Resistance
Be realistic. People resist change and upheaval. Build in some kind of payback for the people whose work will change, and factor in plenty of preparation time.
Train, Train, Train
Be prepared to sink time and money into training people in the new system. Expect downtime as people make the transition, and budget for the inevitable user errors.
Sales Automation Features to Look For
Certainly, a sales automation program should include contact management, scheduling, and note-taking capabilities, features that are also available in PIMs. Following is a list of key features that a sales automation system should provide.
Lead Tracking
Having several hundred entries in an address book isn't the same as tracking leads. Since easily half of the leads you generate won't result in sales, you must track the status of every lead as well as its source (marketing campaign, bought lists, advertising, and so on). Any qualified prospect that isn't ready to buy should pop up as a regular reminder for follow-up calls.
Lead Qualification
The ability to flag a lead as ready to buy, not ready to buy, or unqualified is important. Deleting unqualified leads is not a good approach. When you get new lists of prospects, you need to remove duplicates so you don't call back poor leads. The sales system must include intelligent scripting that can eliminate duplicates in call lists and offer free-form note taking, automated fulfillment of sales literature, and the ability to add a merit scoring system for leads.
Fulfillment
For sales automation to be truly automated, it must be intimately tied to any system that fulfills literature requests and orders.
Post-Sales Follow-Up
Tracking what's been sold and delivered is all well and good, but once a deal is closed, you should track telemarketer compensation, the effectiveness of marketing and list sources, and the overall profitability of marketing efforts. Such analysis should be part of the system's roster of reports and graphs or, at the very least, be easy to implement through third-party add-ons.
Where to Buy
GoldMine 4.0
GoldMine Corporation
800/654-3526
www.goldminesw.com
Third-party support software: www.goldminesw.com/addons/
Street price: $165
Maximizer 5.0
MultiActive Software
800/804-6299
www.maximizer.com
Third-party support software: www.maximizer.com/3d/3d.htm
Street price: $149
Sales Continuum 98
Pipestream Technologies
800/296-4472
www.pipestream.com
Price: $249 per user
Telemagic Enterprise 4.0
Sage US
800/835-6244
www.telemagic.com
Third-party support software: www.telemagic.com/addon/addhome.htm
Street price: $315
SalesLogix
SalesLogix
800/643-6400
www.saleslogix.com
Price: $695 to $995 per user
ACT! 4.0
Symantec Corporation
877/469-7467
www.symantec.com
www.act-plus.com
Street price: $199.95, Windows; $169, Macintosh; $99, Win CE
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